


Solrock is also a Star

by IceFairyChiruno, Nox_of_Lemuria



Category: POKÉMON Detective Pikachu (2019), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: It's actually a comedy despite the serious opening, Other, did I mention its a disaster, exposition and stuff, more tags will be added the more we update this disaster, warner bros please hire me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-19 12:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceFairyChiruno/pseuds/IceFairyChiruno, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nox_of_Lemuria/pseuds/Nox_of_Lemuria
Summary: Lucy Stevens has landed the job of the century being a reporter after the R Incident rocked Ryme City.What she doesn't know is that she's about to get an informant who is of silver tongue, dubious wealth, and a lot of trouble.





	1. First Finances

**Author's Note:**

> We both apologize for this.  
> Not really.

Things were back to normal within the region of Ryme City. Well, as normal as they could be after the incidents of the past few weeks had blown over.

The debris from the 10 Year Anniversary Parade had been swept away and cleaned up by humans and Pokemon alike. As the sun faded over the city skyline something watched silently, perched upon a telephone wire amongst others of its kind. A single Joltik scurried away from the pack as it crawled to the window of a nearby bar and peeked in.

Every flat screen in the place had the events from the day replaying, either in fullscreen as the feature story or through scrolling text headlines beneath other shows. The joltik watched as a band of Sneasel cheered on a Pangoro and its partner as they guzzled whatever cheap beer they could buy. At least a group of rowdy pokemon would garner more attention than a joltik on the wall. The tiny spider crawled inside and made its way into the overly decorated ceiling full of typical bar paraphernalia. 

Hidden from sight the Joltik watched whatever news it could.

_ Former CEO Chairman found guilty of illegal and inhumane treatment of Pokemon.  _

_ R Gas tied to Clifford Industries.  _

_ Roger Clifford to undo the dark past and look to a bright future. _

The joltik rolled its eyes and wondered just what had transpired in the past few hours, but as its eyes traced the other screens for news it caught sight of a familiar intern. 

There she was—Lucy Stevens, front and center giving a rehash about the events in detail and selling it all with her attention grabbing voice. The joltik hated that it was impressed; listening to her rehash the battle between Mewtwo and Pikachu was enough to hold its attention until it cut back to the nobody who was hosting the evening news.

That girl was trouble. She already had been trouble. And she would surely continue to be. 

There was only one thing to do.

The Joltik took a deep breath and jumped at the screen.

Sparks flew, screams and shouts of confusion filled the air and the joltik fell to the floor energized and full of vigor. It ran along the ground as the bar patrons made a ruckus around the mess it had made. A ripple ran through its body and, with newly elongated claws, it swiped the tip jar the bartenders had set under the counter. 

Amidst the chaos, however, its act of theft unfortunately still went noticed.

"Hey! Someone get that Sneasel!" 

The Dark Pokemon’s one large ear flicked in alarm as it continued to flee, now weighed down with the glass jar. Money didn't mean much to a Pokemon, but it meant a lot to the world, and money talked. The Sneasel hoisted its heavy prize into one arm and used its other claw to summon a spear of ice that shattered one of the front windows. Throwing its weight with the jar the sneasel escaped through the newly-formed exit and ran down the street, into the twist and turns of the many alleyways it had grown accustomed to seeing. The hollering of those giving chase died down and soon the Sneasel was left to only its thoughts, and the money in its claws.

"Ha..." 

Finding a nook to rest in, the Sneasel fell back and winced at the cold brick against its fine black fur. It had already taken a beating today as it were, so a petty robbery should be nothing, but every muscle ached and it shut its eyes in fatigue.

"Haha...ha." 

It was probably because it was so tired, but as it lazily pulled a few coins out of the jar and tried to muddledly put together a plan, it realized something. 

"Laugh...ter...?" 

The sneasels eyes widened at the words that escaped its mouth and it clicked its claws. It gave another tired laugh and went limp against the wall. Whatever had happened earlier when that stupid boy gassed it with all that damn R must have had quite the side effect besides knocking it out cold.

"Right, right.” It found its words slowly and fought to draw each one. It was a struggle and found that it could only get so much right in its fatigue. 

But there would be more time to practice, there would be more time indeed.

More time to plan, more time to scheme, more time to act. 

Especially for Lucy Stevens.

It would definitely see to that. 


	2. Drop Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine a sexy Pelipper, you're welcome.

"What do you think?"

"I think that if your police friends can solve this supposed incident, then you'll be the first person to cover it."

Lucy trotted around her boss’ office carefully, trying not to trip over her collection of unravelling stacks of paper and her partner Psyduck at her feet. Her boss, Roger Howard, stood beside by the door, doing his best to stay clear of her perilous path.

"Of course I will,” said Lucy. “Something this important will definitely be aired as soon as we find who's behind this." She stopped to try and rearrange her messy stacks of research

" _If_ we find out," Roger corrected. “Many news outlets in other regions are dismissing it as simple computer malfunctions. That's what the Unova region is calling them anyway."

"Malfunctions that cause people’s Pokemon to be released out of the PC and back into the wild?" Lucy trailed off, seeing the CEO’s face crease up in a grim frown. "Seems more than a would-be computer hiccup."

"At least that Amanita girl hasn't gone missing. If she did, I’m sure that Interpol and every other law enforcement in the world would be chomping at the bit."

"Don't say things like that Roger." Lucy adjusted her workload and a loose leaf of paper went flying away from her. "We don't need people disappearing for the public to take this seriously."

"You'd be surprised by how callous some people can be."

_You're one to talk_ , Lucy felt like blurting out. Before she could find the right reply, she stepped on the piece of paper that had been shaken loose from her stack and slipped backwards. Pens and filed information scattered everywhere and Psyduck to tripped over his own two feet in surprise.

"Try to not get tangled feet as you try to cover this either." Roger sighed and continued onto his next meeting. Lucy sat up and huffed as she watched him leave. The media mogul’s head sure was filled to the tip with pride, even if he wasn't the scheming villain his father had painted him out to be.

"It wouldn't hurt for him to show a little bit of compassion would it?" Lucy muttered, starting to pick her findings up from the ground. Psyduck gave a groan of agreement as he helped her with the mess in silence. Once they had made a slightly less teetering stack of papers they set back to the cubicle she now had instead of her old workplace next to the water heater. "Then again being here is an upgrade from writing articles about why Flareon can't learn Solar Beam."

Psyduck gave a nod and followed slowly behind her as to not cause another accident.

"Still wish that I would get a little more recognition though you know?" she said through a sigh, letting the papers fall atop the table in her office space. Sitting down and facing the stacks of loose leaf papers and manila folders made the promoted reporter feel just a little bit overwhelmed.

She could get through it though, she told herself. It had been a few months since the R incident. Back then, for the first few days in the aftermath she had been working her butt off, covering every detail of the atrocities committed under the guise of Clifford Industries. She had already done so much with Tim and finding out the truth about R, so solving a mystery about a malfunctioning Pokemon Storage system should be a walk in the park.

Nowadays aside from the occasional underground battle network being dug up or a Purrloin being rescued from a tree, Ryme City and the surrounding region was thankfully peaceful, in contrast to some of the other regions such as Orre. But that made for poor news coverage. Lucy began to look to the other regions before others in the company could, eager to find something first.

The first reports of the PC Storage in Unova were made when some up-and-coming showrunner for Pokemon Musicals had several of their Pokemon "released" into the wild, in what looked like an unlucky case of a server crash. Details about the incident trickled in and some tabloids started flinging around accusations of the showrunner being abusive towards their pokemon. Foul play was becoming a possibility.

Then a few weeks after, Pokemon belonging to several Gym trainers were accidentally released. The likelihood that the server problems were connected were slim, but still probable. That would be the mystery Lucy would tackle as she skimmed whatever sites for whatever information she could find and forward things worth "privately" investigating to Tim and Harry. The process was slow however as many of the sites outside of main news pages were simple public forums or personal websites. Maybe she had bitten off more than she could chew.

Lucy was brought back out of her musings as Psyduck tugged on her pant leg and pointed to a folded notice stuck to the inside of the cubicle wall. Thinking nothing of it she plucked it from the wall and looked at whatever had been left for during her meeting with with Roger.

 

_Lucy Stevens_

 

_The incidents in Unova are not PC malfunctions, but being caused by an outside source._

 

_Whomever or whatever it is I am not sure. But know that you and your friends at Ryme City Police Department are onto something._

 

_Just know that you're safe for now, keep looking for whatever leads you can find._

 

The paper was still warm as if it had been printed recently. Lucy peered out into the hallway to see if the culprit behind the note was still anywhere in sight. Looking back to the paper she felt like this would have been something she would've done when she was first investigating Harry Goodman's disappearance; like when she tried to be incognito with Tim at the Hi Hat Cafe. The font used was the default one and given that her computer seemed free of tamper, it had been printed from somewhere else.

Psyduck stepped in place a little bit and furrowed his brows as Lucy relayed the message to him. He took another look outside and muttered a little. “Relax,” said Lucy, “this doesn't look like a threat." She folded the note it and put it aside as she let Psyduck rest next to her. "Although I do wonder who might’ve sent us our little fan mail."

Above them, out of sight, a Joltik watched silently from the ceiling.

 

\----------

 

The end of the work day brought Lucy and Psyduck to her apartment. The abode was built like the others in the Oak line of apartment complexes—simple and efficient. Dropping her bag off in the living room, Lucy set about making tea in the kitchen. Psyduck on the other hand helped himself to a sitrus berry, and both human and Pokemon attempted to mellow out in silence.

The silence was broken as the sound of knocking on the door of the apartment echoed and Psyduck nearly upset his berry.

"That's weird." She could have sworn that there hadn't been anyone in the hall earlier.

Checking through the peephole Lucy caught sight of a person decked out in loud blue and yellow gear not unlike that of a Pelipper. _Oh, mail delivery._

The mail-carrier frowned as she gave another knock.

"I need a signature for this," said the loudly dressed woman, straightening her sunglasses. "I can't leave it downstairs."

Lucy wondered why she hadn't opened the door already. Perhaps her overactive imagination was making her extra cautious. Shaking off whatever feeling she had earlier Lucy undid the deadlocks and pulled the door open for the woman. "Sorry about that, I thought I was just hearing things when you first knocked,” she white-lied.

"At least you answered, that's what's important." The mailwoman produced a manilla parcel with an emblem of a shield pressed into a wax seal. Lucy noted that the sender was addressed from Unova, and something within her caught alight in excitement.

Forgetting why she had to open the door in the first place, Lucy took the envelope and ran with it to the coffee table in the living room. Opening it up, the first page was blank and had a sticky note attached that simply said "Plasma". Further inside she found various papers that had been both typed and written, along with various photographs and sketches. In her excitement she could only catch parts of each page.

 

_Unova, Team, Storage, Dragons, King, Ghetsis._

 

Lucy paused on the last word and decided to actually start reading the full paragraph that contained the odd name. She was so engrossed in discovering more about what was potentially going on in Unova that she didn't notice Psyduck giving increasingly louder quacks of concern before falling silent.

"Excuse me." a voice crooned in her ear and Lucy felt a chill run through her body. Snapping around in place she saw the courier practically looming over her.

"What do you want?" On impulse Lucy raised the package, ready to attack the other woman.

"I told you.” The mail carrier didn't even flinch. "I need you to sign this."

Lucy bit her lip in embarrassment and lowered her would-be weapon.

"Sorry about that, I guess I just got excited." She took the other woman's pen and signed the confirmation paper. "I'm sure you've seen plenty of of people get excited over mail."

"You could say that." The woman folded the paper and stashed it away. "I hope that whatever's in there is to your liking." She gave Lucy a coy smile and left with the suddenness of her first appearance. The door gave an almost spellbinding click as it shut soundly behind her.

It took a moment for the younger woman to register that somehow the courier had been in the middle of her apartment for the entire time that she had been going through the parcel and possibly had even seen some of the things within the envelope. But what would a mail carrier be so interested in just another piece of mail for?

"Psy..."

Lucy noticed that Psyduck was sitting down in a stupor with what could only be described as a look of bliss. Kneeling down next to her partner, she rubbed the side of his head.

"Hey, what's got you all flustered and happy? It's like someone used attract on you."

"Psyduck!" The waterfowl blinked and looked around with a more confused expression than usual. Looking back Lucy read his bewilderment as if to say, _What just happened?_

"That woman came in and that's the last you remembered?"

He gave a firm nod and clenched his beak tightly. Looking back to the door he furrowed his brow again but in frustration for not being there for his partner, mixed with mild panic at blanking out.

The air was indeed still as they came to terms that they had potentially had a close shave with an outside source. But what could the courier’s intentions be, if she was so intrigued with Lucy reading the information within the package?

"Oh that's right." Lucy took the parcel back from where she had placed it and brought it to Psyducks side. "It looks like this is talking about the incident concerning the Pokemon Storage Facilities in Unova." She tried her best to distract him from the unsettling encounter they'd just had.

Psyduck took his eyes off the door and looked down at what he could make out. He was able to read to a certain level but he mostly went off drawings or his feather brained memory. Sketches of a strange pokeball with a marble colored design caught his eye. _Dream Ball._ Apparently it was related to the unfortunate release of several pokemon in Unova.

"We will have to forward this information to Tim and his Dad" said Lucy. Her eyes kept trailing back up to the door, having some nagging feeling that it might slowly start to open again like in a cheesy horror film. "And we’ll need to tell them to watch out for any mail carriers while we're at it."

Her partner gave a quack of agreement before picking up the sitrus berry he had dropped earlier and resumed munching on it. Before long he was back in food bliss, and the troubles of the mysterious intruder were gone from his head.

But their actual troubles were only about to begin.


End file.
